Dems on Education

Neuropsychiatrist wrote:

fred keebler wrote:

Bull sh-t on Ireland post. It was the poorest of the western european countries until the computer boom. It also became user friendly to big bussiness. Many of whom set up shop because of lower land prices and tax breaks.

Ahhh Free market fetishist....

Where are the big companies getting their skilled and educated labor?...yes they did cut taxes and made it more business friendly...but they also invested in education, healthcare etcc....Your post nothing to disprove anything I write

And your post doesn't prove anything about investment in education equaling success. The one poster was right on: D.C. spends more than any other district in the nation, and they are also one of the worst, if not the worst, performing in the country.

"It is easier to educate strong children than to fix broken men."

Not to mention cheaper.

You have a funny way of showing your admiration for a tough job. And speaking of my above average pay....my pay as a teacher might be above average for all American workers, but for someone with a Masters degree in math, I\'m sure my salary is far below the median of those with similiar education.

9 months a year? My contract goes from early August to early June. Looks more like 10 months to me.

My brother worked 8 months a year in construction most of the time, then was laid off in the winter and paid unemployment. But I don\'t hear society railing about \"underworked construction workers\". And he just retired at age 50 with a union pension higher than my salary, and was a high school dropout.

My brother in law works sales, and a typical work day is an hour or two in his office doing paperwork, an hour or two making sales calls or deliveries, an hour or two at lunch on company expense, and the rest of the time driving his car listening to Rush Limbaugh and the like. I\'ve watched him work at the computer entering sales data and if I worked that slow, it would take me 12 hours to grade a class of papers. Yet, I never hear society rail on about how little sales reps work.

madarin wrote:

And your post doesn't prove anything about investment in education equaling success. The one poster was right on: D.C. spends more than any other district in the nation, and they are also one of the worst, if not the worst, performing in the country.

This is a very flimsy argument. Here's an example from my teaching assignment:

I teach two subjects, an at-risk pre-algebra class, and an Advanced Placement class in statistics. In the AP class, I teach a total of 85 students with no assistance. For the at-risk class, I have a total of 35 students between two classes; because nearly everyone I have is either special needs or English as a Second Language, I have a classroom aide in one class, and I team-teach with an ESL teacher and have another classroom aide in the other.

Which one is more cost-effective, and which one do you think gets the best results? According to your logic, if I taught the at-risk class the same way I taught the AP Stats class, I'd get the same results.

Teaching students isn't like producing widgets.

JimUB wrote:

Yet, I never hear society rail on about how little sales reps work.

Sales reps work as much or as little as they want, if they don\'t sell, they don\'t get paid. If they can goof off all day and make great $ hats off to them. I also don\'t feel sorry if they work all day and don\'t earn squat.

I don't think there is a single county in the United States that has it's teachers work only 9 months a year.

By federal law students have to be in the classroom 180 days minimum.

So you might be right that students have to only be in school only 9 months (even though in reality it’s a few weeks longer. However, teachers have to work 10 months out of the year. 10 months is if they are in a lucky county that doesn’t force other things on them. Depending on the county or state some places require work days over the summer.

Your figure of 9 months screams of ignorance and bias.

danno wrote:

Sales reps work as much or as little as they want, if they don't sell, they don't get paid. If they can goof off all day and make great $ hats off to them. I also don't feel sorry if they work all day and don't earn squat.

Good point.

I'm probably a little sensitive after hearing my brother in law wail on about how "hard he works" compared to me, when the difference in the intensity of our work days is laughable by comparison.

Um, nothing in your response has anything to do with what I wrote about spending. I think you should check YOUR logic.

It doesn't have

madarin wrote:

Um, nothing in your response has anything to do with what I wrote about spending. I think you should check YOUR logic.

It doesn't have anything to do with spending?

What is going to be more expensive to fund, three classes with 25-30 students per class and one teacher with no assistance, or two classes with 15-20 students each, which are supervised by a teacher, an instructional aide, and (in one case) a second teacher?

And do you think the DC public schools have more of the first type of student I teach or the second?

madarin wrote:

Um, nothing in your response has anything to do with what I wrote about spending. I think you should check YOUR logic.

You were talking about spending. The number of teachers and instructional aides per student, and the cost of paying these people has NOTHING to do with spending?

Enlighten me, please.

It doesn't have

madarin wrote:

Um, nothing in your response has anything to do with what I wrote about spending. I think you should check YOUR logic.

It doesn't have anything to do with spending?

What is going to be more expensive to fund, three classes with 25-30 students per class and one teacher with no assistance, or two classes with 15-20 students each, which are supervised by a teacher, an instructional aide, and (in one case) a second teacher?

And do you think the DC public schools have more of the first type of student I teach or the second?

Young Buck wrote:

In case you didn't catch the irony, I was mocking him. Like I really care if an anonymous poster calls me an idiot? Now I bet you feel all high and mighty, pretending to get a kick out of me. Good one.

And you sure like to put words in my mouth huh? Typical liberal. haha

Haha. Who said I was liberal? And, yeah its hard to tell whether you're joking or not since people post like that all the time and I get a kick out of it, whether it's you posting in irony or not.

JimUB wrote:

madarin wrote:

Um, nothing in your response has anything to do with what I wrote about spending. I think you should check YOUR logic.

You were talking about spending. The number of teachers and instructional aides per student, and the cost of paying these people has NOTHING to do with spending?

Enlighten me, please.

You are proving my point for me. DC spends the money to pay for aides, teachers, etc. Of course this costs money. My point is that the money isn't fixing anything, nor will it ever. They are still the lowest scoring district in the nation. If doesn't matter how much money is sent their way, how small the class sizes are, or how many after school programs you offer. Until you change the culture they come from, you will never raise test scores or get rid of the achievement gap.

Here's a great example:

This is the official list of state spending on education per capita from the US Census. The overall correlation between spending and relative education achievement rank is quite strong. You have New York, Massachusetts, California and such near the top...and you have Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Oregon, and such at the bottom. Of course, you always have the right wing nutcases taking the non-significant one piece of data out of context (DC) to misrepresent what the broad data says:

Dems know nothing about education - the worst schools and cities in the country are completely run by Dems.

If you want a failing school system Dem Gov, Dem Mayor, and obviously, Dem School Board - then, toss in some illegals and we can make them illiterate in 2 languages, while dragging down our own kids.

Where does it say anything on that list about achievement rankings? I guess of course you always have left wing nutcases presenting incomplete and misleading data.

6PackofPBR wrote:

Dems know nothing about education - the worst schools and cities in the country are completely run by Dems.

If you want a failing school system Dem Gov, Dem Mayor, and obviously, Dem School Board - then, toss in some illegals and we can make them illiterate in 2 languages, while dragging down our own kids.

Yeah, those Lowell HS kids in SF are shitheads.

madarin wrote:

You are proving my point for me. DC spends the money to pay for aides, teachers, etc. Of course this costs money. My point is that the money isn't fixing anything, nor will it ever. They are still the lowest scoring district in the nation. If doesn't matter how much money is sent their way, how small the class sizes are, or how many after school programs you offer. Until you change the culture they come from, you will never raise test scores or get rid of the achievement gap.

Here's a great example:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/11/AR2007111101648.html

I agree with you wholeheartedly. But as an insider, a concerned teacher is very possibly the only chance to give students experiences that might break this cycle of underachievement.

True, it's a small number. All of the bellicose rhetoric about getting everyone to standard or anything like that isn't going to make any difference when the power-brokers making those decisions don't see that population as anything more than Wal-mart workers at best.

But if someone doesn't get that inspiration to break that cycle in school, where are they going to get it?

I'm a public school teacher, and I'm guessing that's what you mean by "insider." I agree, teachers should be a source of inspiration. However, you should also know that blame for lack of achievement and failing schools is constantly placed on educators, and never placed on culture, especially by those at the top. We are fighting a losing battle every single day until individuals lose the PC mentality and begin addressing the real issues.